


The Woman from Pod Thirty Nine

by The_Dancing_Walrus



Series: Not Quite Khalsa [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Augments, Children, Dubious Ethics, Female Character of Color, Gen, Genetic Experimentation, Identity, OC, Race, Spoilers, What about the rest of the crew?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Dancing_Walrus/pseuds/The_Dancing_Walrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Tiberius Kirk catches up with an escaped Augment. </p>
<p>For some reason he expects the process to involve more violence and less discussion of ethics and cardamon tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman from Pod Thirty Nine

She wasn’t what Jim had been expecting but come to think of it he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting exactly.

 

Another Khan? Not a carbon copy but that calm expression, perfect posture and suffocating arrogance. Someone who wouldn’t smile but might curl their lip up while they looked down at him.

 

She is…almost the exact opposite of Khan, short and plump and brown-

 

He hadn’t expected her to have children with her. A pair of flour-covered boys who look about ten and a girl a few years younger who stare up in cold terror at the man with a phaser who’s broken into their kitchen.

 

“You must be Captain Kirk.”

 

Her voice is level but not cold. She puts the bowl of…of brownie mix on the counter, the wooden spoon still in it, and plants herself firmly in front of the children.

 

There is no way this is going to end well.

 

“Would you like a drink?”

 

He’s in the process of coming up with a response when he catches sight of movement behind her, turns-

 

And finds himself pointing a gun at a child. The boy glares at him, left hand in a drawer, fingers curled around a steak knife-

 

“Sekar!” The woman snaps in an indignant tone as if she’d caught him with his thumb in the brownie mix.

 

The boy’s eyes flick from Kirk to her and his right hand forms a series of complicated, patterned gestures. Home signs.

 

The woman’s left hand doesn’t shift from her side, but it flits through similar motions as if she was trying to pilot a ship and someone kept moving the control panel. The boy scowls and reluctantly releases the knife.

 

“I think we’d be more comfortable if you put down your weapon Captain.”

 

“I think I’d be more comfortable if we were alone.” Kirk replies.

 

She smiles with a sort of grim triumph and turns her back to him. She tells the children to be good and the girl says ‘no’ and ‘please’ over and over with desperation in her voice.

 

No, Ma, please. No-

 

She bends and hugs each of them tight. Shushes them. Tells them to be brave.

 

They file out of the kitchen, the girl is shaking and the boy who went for the steak knife turns to glare at him one last time. Then the door clicks shut behind them.

 

And the woman from pod thirty nine smiles at him, an honest relieved smile.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” She asks over her shoulder.

 

“I’m fine Ma’am.” He’s not sure why he calls her that, not when-

 

“Where did you find the children?”

 

“I took a rather…circuitous route here Captain.” She tells him as she sets her kettle to boil. “I came across small-scale slave rings and people smuggling operations on the way. I took the liberty of disrupting them but I saw no pressing reason to hand the orphans I came across to the authorities.”

 

“How many-”

 

“I have nineteen children Captain. Aged between five and sixteen.”

 

Nineteen-

 

Part of his brain tries to process the fact that she’s been using her three years of freedom to raise nineteen kids. The rest of it tries to imagine how someone like her, someone like Khan, would raise children.

 

The scenarios he imagines do not contain bowls of brownie mixture left on the kitchen counter or bright crayon drawings pinned to the wall.

 

The kettle boils and the room fills with the sweet smell of cardamom. She sits at the counter with a small sigh, raises her mug to her lips, closes her eyes and breathes in deeply making the steam dance.

 

He can’t quite bring himself to lower the phaser.

 

“What are you doing here?” He asks and she gives him a look as though he should already know the answer.

 

“Raising nineteen children. I work from home analysing chemical data, which pays far better than it did in my day thankfully. Occasionally I grapple with tax returns. Sometimes I even sleep.”

 

“Who have you been in contact with?” He tries because pod thirty nine was not the only one that sprang open-

 

She snorts. “Captain I have been taking care of _nineteen_ children, all of whom have had severely traumatic experiences. I have not had the time to contact other members of Khan’s crew and even if I did do you really think I would risk their freedom for the _riveting_ Intel I’ve gathered? ‘Oh Captain Kit got the highest mark in the district for the standard maths test, and Lan is finally sleeping peacefully and Sushila is on her year’s cricket team.’-”

 

She cuts herself off and sips her tea.

 

“I’m sorry Captain.” She murmurs. “That was rude.”

 

Starfleet officers are trained to adapt and that is what Kirk does. The situation is not what he had been lead to believe and so-

 

He slips into a more relaxed stance, lowers his phaser a fraction but keeps it pointed at her. Enough, hopefully, to show he doesn’t intend to hurt her without making him appear weak or foolish.

 

“What’s your name?” He asks.

 

She smiles. “Layla, like the stories.”

 

“The stories?”

 

“Af Layla Wa Layla.”

 

A Thousand and One Nights. Fairy stories-

 

“Do you read them to your children?”

 

“Some of them. Qiang, Indah and Nichola are too young. Grace is frightened by them and Lan doesn’t like fairy tales. Amita insists she’s too old for them.” She sighed. “Kit and Sekar can’t read enough of them, the Nights, the Eddas, the Odyssey, the Grimm Brothers, anything with adventure, which translates Captain, to about ten minutes peaceful reading for every thirty they spend charging round the house with plastic swords.”

 

For a moment they share a smile.

 

But the moment passes quickly and Layla’s smile fades to a small, worried frown. There is, he notices, a smattering of grey in her hair just above her ear and the faint trace of crows feet by her dark eyes.

 

“What did you do Layla?” Kirk wonders.

 

“Do?” She repeats as though the answer is so obvious it renders the question absurd. “I am an Augment. I was designed to be a soldier. Although of course, environment as well as genetics plays a part-”

 

She gestures to her stomach with a smile. “Too much almond sambousek, I’m afraid.”

 

“For Khan,” Kirk clarifies. “You were part of his crew, what was your job.”

 

For a moment she looks unbearably sad but it passes into a mild frown with another sip of tea.

 

“Khan did not regiment us in the way you imagine.” She says finally. “We did not have ranks, strictly speaking. We all did what I am sure you would consider menial cadet work. Each of us would advise Khan if our area of expertise was relevant, or if it was an ethical matter.”

 

Kirk thinks about the children learning to bake, the well-used kitchen, the soldier worn round by a love of desserts and wonders if he’s captured Khan’s cook. He almost thinks it’s likely, except that she’s evading the question.

 

“So what was your speciality?” He asks, calm and conversational as though it doesn’t matter at all.

 

Her expression hardens. Her posture shifts, he reads it as defensive and has the sudden feeling that the smiling woman in front of him has done dreadful things.

 

“That is somewhat difficult to describe Captain. I was a doctor, though not entirely a medical one. A biologist. I specialised in genetics, or rather the expression of genes and the relationship between structure and function in proteins. I know in precise detail what each piece of coding in the human body does. I know what, exactly, was done to make us different from each other Captain.” She sighs. “I was also extremely close to producing a new antibiotic before we left Earth. I was rather proud of it but I believe it is unnecessary now.”

 

Kirk sighs. What she has or hasn’t done won’t matter, if she knows how to make Augments the Federation would want her back in cryo asap. Or worse, they’d have another Admiral who would want to use it. Vast parts of her research have probably been illegal since the Eugenics Wars ended. No wonder she is defensive.

 

She takes a deep shuddering breathe, lets it out slowly and looks at Kirk, studies him. He resists the urge to fidget.

 

“They say very good things about you in the news.” She observes. “They call you a hero.”

 

He wonders if she’s upset about Khan.

 

“I try my best.” He responds.

 

“The Khan I knew would not have mindlessly attacked the Federation Captain. I know I was not revived previously so I assume that someone in Starfleet made the mistake of holding us hostage. What did they want from Khan?”

 

Kirk pauses. Telling her is unnecessary, even if it is harmless. Perhaps he just doesn’t want to admit that a Starfleet Admiral started this fight.

 

“One of our previous Admirals wanted him to design weapons.” Kirk admits.

 

“Your Admiral was a fool.”

 

Kirk agrees. Layla gives him a small quick smile.

 

“What will happen to my children, Captain?”

 

“They’ll be fostered.” Kirk replies as gently as he can.

 

She shakes her head. “They won’t.”

 

She doesn’t move from her seat, not a threat, a statement of fact. He’s not sure what to make of it and then she continues-

 

“I told them to run, if this ever happened. To hide. They have money, false documents, an idea of how to find the others. They’ll have split up by now- I am of course assuming that you did not have my house surrounded, though I don’t think you could have stopped them leaving if you did.”

 

She stops and sips her tea while Kirk tries not to look as astonished as he feels.

 

“Why?” He asks before he can think.

 

“Because they’re Augments.”

 

His grip on the phaser tightens and the trigger gives a little under his finger. But he’s a Starfleet officer, calm and in control, he doesn’t fire. He was right, despite their superficial differences this woman is as monstrous as Khan.

 

“You experimented on children.” Kirk snarls, because his self-control is not perfect.

 

“No I did not.” She snaps. “’Experiment’ implies I risked their lives and did not know in advance the consequence of my actions. I was fully aware of what would happen and at no point took any risks with their lives or their health-”

 

“You mutilated them.” Kirk accuses.

 

“Do you think we’re deformed Captain?” She asks in a flat tone.

 

He doesn’t answer.

 

Her eyes flick down, focusing on something in the bottom of her cardamom tea. “Correct me if I’m wrong, if I hadn’t changed them they would be returned to any living family where possible and otherwise fostered. Your government, with the very best of intentions, would return around a quarter of them to the people that sold or abused them in the first place-”

 

“So you did it for their own good?” He doesn’t like the way his voice sounds as he says that, the disbelieving vicious sneer-

 

“No Captain.” She replies, catching his eye and holding it. “I did it because at the time I escaped there were 73 living members of my species, 69 of whom were imprisoned and 58 of whom are completely sterile. Do you know what the minimum number of individuals necessary to ensure a species long term survival is? It’s estimated at five hundred.”

 

“Species?” He queries.

 

She draws herself up, straightens her posture until he can see the soldier under her rotund figure and the cake mixture in her fingernails.

 

“Yes. Species.”

 

He tries to think of a way to deny it, to show that it’s ridiculous, their own arrogance and superiority complex twisting their logic-

 

But every rebuttal he thinks of has a hole in it somewhere. They were made from humans but why should that mean any more than the fact that somewhere down the line dogs came from wolves? It’s-

 

He remembers the way Spock had looked after Nero, after Vulcan and scowls because he doesn’t want or need sympathy for the man who murdered Pike.

 

And all at once Layla’s steely expression breaks.

 

“Captain whatever you think of me my children have done _nothing_ wrong.”

 

He wants to put it down to manipulation but it’s true. It would be easier to simply say that they’re broken, that Khan and his crew were so twisted and changed that they couldn’t think like people any more, just like it would have been easier to fire 72 torpedoes at ‘John Harrison’ from orbit. She sounds sincere. She sounds like she cares and Kirk isn’t sure which is worse the kind of person who would use children as lab rats because they didn’t care, or the kind of person who loved them, cared for them and would do it anyway.

 

“Do you know what kind of life they’ll have if you chase them?” She wonders. “If you catch them?”

 

“Do you?” Kirk responds.

 

“Of course.” Layla retorts. “I _lived_ it.”

 

The silence stretches out. Kirk tries to think of a way around it, a way to solve it all. But human genetic modification has been illegal so long; they couldn’t cure those kids without running the risk of killing them. They’d become medical curiosities, their blood would net a share value higher than diamonds-

 

“You said they’d find the rest of your crew.”

 

Layla nods and Kirk sighs.

 

“You’ve sent 19 super soldiers to help the other three escapees.” He can’t, in good conscious, leave that out of his report.

 

“They’re not soldiers.” She says softly.

 

“My superiors won’t see it that way.”

 

She gives him a small bitter smile that silently assures Kirk she knows all about superior officers and their foibles.

 

“If they went to anyone else they’d spend the rest of their lives in hospitals and laboratories-”

 

“I know.” Kirk interrupts as gently as he can in the circumstances. “But your Captain attacked Earth and killed thousands of people. And you’ll have a helluva time convincing anyone that you won’t try and wake him up eventually.”

 

She clasps her mug of tea tighter and seems to be on the verge of saying more but-

 

She doesn’t.

 

There’s something else, something important that he’s missing.

 

“Khan thought being an Augment made him better than everybody else,” Kirk begins. “Is that what you taught your children?”

 

Layla lets out a small snorting laugh. “No.”

 

“You don’t believe that?”

 

“There is an appropriate verse I think, something about men being equal in all things except piety, but I’m afraid I was never one for scripture-” She pauses to drain the last of her tea. “Augments are designed to have a greater base potential than Humans, Captain. But what makes a person better or worse is their actions and how they make use of that potential. I did not tell my children they were to become part of a superior species.”

 

It reminds Kirk a little of history lessons and the low key casual racism of a different age. Still it’s an improvement on Khan.

 

“And what did you tell them about your Captain?”

 

“I-”

 

For a moment she seems thrown, she glances down at her empty cup and another sad smile flits over her face.

 

“I told them that Khan Noonien prevented more wars than he started. That Khan was loyal and brave and fair. That he was brilliant and….a true Sikh, someone who believed in human dignity and protecting the weak.”

 

The description comes faster as it progresses, with Layla staring down into her empty cup, smiling at memories.

 

“She was-”

 

“She?”

 

Her expression, the way her mouth clicks suddenly closed, convinces him it’s not just a Freudian slip.

 

He tries to remember the little he knows about the historical period dubbed ‘The Eugenics Wars’. A lot of records were lost, civilisation was devastated- Is it possible that in the turmoil and centuries Khan was rewritten? And isn’t Khan a man’s name? Uhura might know, or Spock-

 

Two other women had gone missing from the pods-

 

“The man I fought,” The man who killed Pike, he thinks, who destroyed a large chunk of a city and nearly killed me- “What was his real name?”

 

“Khan.” Layla answers, her face blank.

 

Kirk glowers and she raises a hand in a placating gesture.

 

“By Sikh tradition there are only two surnames, one for men and one for women. It was intended to remove the inequalities of the caste system. This occasionally created problems dealing with other nations. He took her first name as a surname when it was necessary.”

 

“Because she was his Captain?”

 

“Because she is his wife.”

 

It really doesn’t change anything.

 

“What’s his name?” Kirk asks again, his tone edging into demanding.

 

Her expression turns steely. She slowly shakes her head.

 

“My children, Captain?”

 

He could lie. Tell her they’ll be left alone and report them as soon as she’s back in the cyrotube. They’d have a head start but-

 

He could tell the Admiralty the truth and argue for her children to be treated humanely but-

 

He tries briefly to justify turning them in. They are after all children; they shouldn’t be left alone to fend for themselves. But-

 

“What children?” He asks.

 

She smiles.

 

No one could hide that there were children in this house but Starfleet doesn’t have to know what they were. He might spend every day for the rest of his life wondering whether they’ll turn into monsters but at least he won’t have stood by while children were imprisoned for crimes their parents committed.

 

“Mahaan Singh.” Layla informs him. “Sometimes Mahaan Singh Khan.”

 

She gets to her feet, slowly, turns and puts her cup in the sink. She raises her hands and places them on the back of her head before turning back to Kirk. She gives him one final smile.

 

“Now, if we’re both finished here Captain I believe you were arresting me?”

 

“You’re more trusting than…Singh.” He observes.

 

“Your reputation is your guarantee Captain.” She replies.

 

She doesn’t say that the hero James Tiberius Kirk from the media reports would not relish hunting down minors. She doesn’t say that a cryogenic sleep is a small price to pay for family.

 

She doesn’t say a lot of things.

 

She meekly complies with the orders of a Starfleet officer and leaves Kirk troubled and uncertain for longer than he’d care to admit.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched the movie before the big reveal was splashed all over the place and enjoyed it. I loved Cumberbatch's acting and character. But..... white washing Khan like that made me intensely uncomfortable. It is plain not right. This is me taking the canon, keeping 'John Harrison' and having his boss Khan as a Punjabi Sikh. It started as just that but the way Khan and the other Augments were shaping up grabbed me enough to go over this a *lot* before posting and for it spawn three follow ups (no idea when they'll appear but they will). I chose the name based on the assumption of converting to Sikhism- Singh is the traditional last name for men, it means Lion. The equivalent for women is Kaur, Princess.
> 
> For what it's worth I have seen Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan. I realise other people don't see it like this but at the time I read it as racist stereotyping of the Scarey Brown Men variety, intensely, horribly sexist and inexcusably clunky. It put me off the rest of the series to the point I had to be really talked into giving the new movies a chance. I'm glad I did.


End file.
